Controversial 'NAZA' documentary nominated for three European Film Awards

The European Film Academy officially announced the nominations over the weekend at the Pavlos Zannas Theater in Thessaloniki, as part of the city's International Film Festival.

The controversial film NAZA, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Shor, received three prestigious nominations on Saturday at the 39th European Film Awards.

The film will compete for Best European Film, Best Documentary Film, and Best Sound. The organizers announced.

The European Film Academy officially announced the nominations over the weekend at the Pavlos Zannas Theater in Thessaloniki, as part of the city's International Film Festival.

'Shocking investigation'

Leading this year's list of nominees is the period drama Fatherland, by Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski, with 11 nominations, followed by the Spanish film The Black Ball with ten nominations and the Romanian Palme d'Or winner Fjord with five nominations.

Deadline magazine described NAZA, produced by the British newspaper The Guardian and JW Films, as a "shocking investigation."

The publication also noted that all five nominees in the documentary category were included this year among the Best Film nominees.

The latest achievement comes after the film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and has already attracted more than 1.5 million viewers worldwide.

The awards ceremony will take place on January 16, 2027, at the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center in Athens.

The documentary sparked controversy after it won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival in September, with backlash focused on the fact that it's centered around anonymous testimonies from IDF personnel.

The people interviewed in the film, who claimed to be from top intelligence units in the IDF, also said that mass civilian deaths were routinely built into Israeli military targeting decisions in Gaza.

There was "mass killing on an industrial scale," one of the officers says in a series of anonymous interviews.

In response to the claims made in the documentary, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the justice system should prosecute the people who participated in the NAZA documentary for severe information security offenses, criminal defamation, and damage to Israel's diplomatic and security interests.